How To Plan Your Next Racing Season with Joe Friel

Finn Melanson [00:00:13]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Melanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast. The podcast dedicated to making you a better runner with each and every episode. We are created and produced by the expert team of coaches at runnersconnect.net where you can find the best running information on the Internet as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Joe Friel is a renowned endurance coach, most notable for some of the elite triathlon and cycling athletes he's coached with over the years. He's also the author of a great book called The Triathlete's Training Bible, and he joins the show today to discuss some of the running related themes in the newest edition. In a wide ranging conversation around mental readiness, physical readiness, and races and planning, you'll get some excellent takeaways from topics like why you should become mentally ready before you're physically ready for a race, the most important questions to gauge your mental readiness, the concept of a success savings account, how to determine your ability limiters and goal specific weaknesses, and how to properly use a training diary. Joe is such a wealth of training information.

Finn Melanson [00:01:28]: I really encourage you to give this one a listen. Joe Friel, it is great to have you on the show. You have a book out called the Triathletes Training Bible that we will discuss in detail. And I was just telling you offline, while this is primarily a road running audience, and I promise the listeners that we we aren't veering off into too much of a foreign land and that and that all the, the takeaways here will be applicable to our world. But, you know, there's a lot in your book. The the 3 big topics that I wanna make sure we hit in this conversation are mental readiness, physical readiness, and planning your season, your races, and your weeks of training. Starting with mental readiness, one of the questions I have for you, you talk about this in the book, but why should you become mentally ready before you're physically ready for a race? Why is it important to to have the mental part locked down before the physical part?

Guest [00:02:26]: Well, a lot of that's going to be successful in that. I mean, probably, I would suggest one of the most important things is the athlete to get a a good sense of who they are and what their goals are and what they're trying to achieve in the store. That's kinda like starting, anyway. So this is the mental side of preparation for competition. Physical side, everybody seems to know what they're doing there. I believe a pretty good idea. The mental side, I'm afraid, is what most happens. Most softens down, especially, and they have a little bit of struggles trying to figure out what am I gonna do to prepare mentally for competition? And that that is a bigger challenge than that seems like.

Guest [00:03:05]: I think I thought you should say to yourselves, well, I'm gonna do a raise and speak. It really got back to a lot of hands about how you're how you perceive your stuff, how you perceive what's your what's your goal is. So these are the things we work out before we get too far end of the season.

Finn Melanson [00:03:24]: Practically speaking, what does it look like to be ready mentally? Like, what are you doing to make sure that this part of your preparation is locked down?

Guest [00:03:35]: Yeah. Good question. Probably, again, this is a a, kind of a soft portion of who you are medically, for example. Natalie, I'll ask a lot of questions along the lines of, you know, for example, how much sleep are you gonna That leads me into a long discussion about other goals eventually because I typically find out what happens when I get near sleep. Getting the sleep while you're coming to bed earlier or sleeping later? And that brings us to all past things they have going on in their life. We've got technically, what I find that is is they just have too much going on in their lives, and they haven't got time to really, focus on what they really need to be worried about, which is number 1 with them. Number 2, their career. Number 3, train.

Guest [00:04:32]: They've got so many things going on that those things get crowded out. So I guess there's a it's a start of I'm gonna start talking to Natalie, but that's the technical for Natalie to do in a cell in a conversation by himself. I really have to have thinking about what am I trying to achieve with thing? What am I what am I thinking about levels? And do I think they're they're achievable? Can I can I really do these things or not? Do I have any doubts in my mind about my, ability to accomplish this? And I don't think they do have some doubts because that's should be exactly what we find in that. He's got a goal where he's pretty high for himself. He's like, he's seen as being challenged again. That's possibly. They can do it, but they get all based in there together right they can do. So again, we start to have a spam first, but they're all based right.

Guest [00:05:24]: And the first point is, what do you think about yourself? So there's just a lot to this. It's a it's a very, very thoughtful solving. This is why when they both manage a better on having a coach. Are we someone who can advise them and help them to make decisions along the side? Because it's it's not anything to do.

Finn Melanson [00:05:45]: You know, it reminds me because one of the things that you talk about in the book is this idea of lifestyle focus and how when a race becomes more challenging or or your goal for that race becomes bigger than it might have been earlier in your career, the more you need to center your life around it. And I found that interesting because the idea sort of by contrast, the idea of a balanced lifestyle is in is in vogue right now. And there are a lot of people out there saying, you know, you sort of can live this fulfilling, sound lifestyle balancing or or or being decent at, like, 6 or 7 things simultaneously in life, kind of multitasking your life. But you you you kinda present this, like, important trade off. So talk about that need for the trade off with other parts of your life when you think about, you know, getting the most out of yourself athletically.

Guest [00:06:35]: Yeah. Another very good question. Probably the, this goes back to the same question again. I'm speaking again. He's always been he's not bad. What you got going on with that. It's something that we're very easy. If if you think that word for an easy goal.

Guest [00:06:53]: In other words, they hope they can achieve it. They want to they drive a 10 k in 9:40 minutes before they run another 10 k in 4 minutes. You know, there's a good chance they can do that again since they've done it before. So in that case, you can really have a lot of things to rely because we can we can start adding things into your life. I don't know if it takes some time away and change. You probably still be okay. But and I I had to go back where I had been as a coach. I never had people coming to me and said, I wanted to finish the race I've done before, or I want to, you know, I run a a 40 minute 10 k and now I run a 41 minute 10 k.

Guest [00:07:34]: Most most people don't come to me. I always have people who want to qualify for championships. You want to be out of program and and embrace and wanted to do something which is very challenging. But those type of people, this the people that type of role, this the the most important thing they can do is decide how to train this, how can I do this, how can I put all of a second in my line because it has to be extremely important if this goal is really going to be achieved? In context of, one of the big scientists say I'm not qualified for Ironman in Hawaii. That would be a gigantic challenge for our triathlete, and we can find similar challenges in other sports also. Affirmative Apple says that to me, and they've never done it before. We've never qualified before. Oh, we may have come close to having that.

Guest [00:08:21]: The challenge then becomes, what can we do to make sure they they get everything in their life that's needed to be successful? And the most important thing is the science work as they do. The most important thing is how much sleep they get. So that only bring you back to that topic because people tend to get so much stuff going on, but they can't. They really can't. They need to train. So I I say they all I really wanna train for I'm a qualified army. Great goal. And, I say, well, how many times you got Ironman? I've seen a number before.

Guest [00:09:00]: It's the only Ironman we got out of there too. You know, now this this person's got a really, really slim chance of achieving their goal. In that case, what we're gonna talk more about is how we're gonna make sure you get everything accomplished. Well, Paul, turning turning. So the obvious question is, what do we do in your life? And what it boils down to is that, you know, we have 3 things, which I know should be forward, which is you can have value, your career, and train. Because that's about it if you have a whole life hack. If you don't have a high home, I bet you can say a few other things in your life. So it really comes out just to what you want to achieve and how this this goal is to you, and that has to do with how stuff you can have in your life.

Guest [00:09:42]: So somebody says to me, well, you know, I'd like to I'm turning it for whatever this big goal is for me, but I'd like also volunteer at the Association. We're the drivers. Well, I'm saying, Camille, that's a great idea. Why don't you go after the choice is over and then do that? That'd be great thing to do. Everybody needs to do something like that. Their lives can give back. And this is not the time to do it. You need to find a better time for that.

Guest [00:10:08]: Secondly, if they help to break up, there there is not these types of bad things. Just they can't get the knowledge of life, not to the global sector himself. That that's the judge.

Finn Melanson [00:10:20]: Another, you know, interesting thing that I came across in the book and I guess for for context too, it's pretty common, right, to have a running coach. That's that phenomenon has has been around for a while. It's a lot of people that are preparing for these races have a running coach. But one of the suggestions you make in the book is to really build out an even bigger team around yourself. So talk about that. And, like, when you say a bigger team, like, what kind of personnel is involved? What are their skill sets? What are they bringing to the table? And then, like, how this all works out? Because I have to imagine that, you know, that's I mean, it can be a luxury, right, to have such a big team of, like, you know, like, a a physio, a running coach, a mental coach, all that kind of stuff. So talk about how that's practical advice as well.

Guest [00:11:06]: Yeah. Typically, if, if an athlete has a coach, the coaches already got these members of of the team and you referred to it. These members of the team already logged up. We've got somebody who knows nutrition, somebody who knows horse medicine, somebody who knows all the stuff we have that would be able to really excel at our store. That's totally done. If you're buying yourself, if you're on your own, you need to find these people. You need to find people who can who can get actual advice, the nutritious exam. One of the biggest challenge that have is they don't really know what they should be eating or how much they should eat or when they should eat or all sorts of things.

Guest [00:11:46]: They're going to nutrition nutrition is extremely Somebody may be got an expert on that, but I can start it happen overnight. It's been sort of things that take, months of 9 years to be got on nominal amount to be able to make good decisions for yourselves and. So this is where having some of those nutritious when you corner is very, very important. Again, a coach who probably already have such a person who could help the athlete make decisions on what they should be saying those things that you mentioned also. For example, having a store specialist doctor that they can refer to at least have a physical physician that you can refer you to someone who's critical for this. We need to get testing that I can divide up assigning with your, with the partners of your of your when we're training, perhaps, partners of your of of fitness, partners of your health. These sort of things will be done. So as soon as somebody in the corner who's out of the background and and, in this forest west and to be able to help me break the signals along that same line.

Guest [00:12:52]: So this whole thing is is becomes very, very complicated. It's it's really taken to a much easier stage of of the knowledge that we have as approach because these things you already taken care of. You don't have a person. This becomes extremely difficult to

Finn Melanson [00:13:09]: do. There's actually there's a couple more things that I actually wanna go back to, around mental readiness. And the first one is about gauging mental toughness in athletes. So perhaps when you're when you're working with athletes or as you were, you know, doing research to prepare this book, what have you found are the most important questions or or some of the most important questions you can ask an athlete or an athlete can ask themselves to gauge where they're at from, like, a mental toughness standpoint?

Guest [00:13:41]: Yeah. I never know what that is. I I would prefer to call it, mental readiness. Tough in somehow, taking charge of situation in ways that we should own bearing. It's actually quite like that. It's more along the lines of knowing, what is necessary to to achieve my goal mentally, which is a gigantic challenge. That that's, again, somebody who's got a background in sports psychology can be extremely valuable. So, you know, it's but but how do you do that? How do you grow back becoming more mentally prepared in competition and allow a guy to send a new product right there around you.

Guest [00:14:29]: Well, the easiest way to do this I should say he's the best way at this point right now. My background is for. It's the read on the camera side. There are lots of books out there to read by very novel people on topic in sports psychology. And we're trying to paint it up yourself from scratch. It's coming better off to recent reading, people who have written books on on the topic. So that would be kind of a way of becoming, not exactly expert, but at least draw in form since you can make decisions and do things and one to help them become a better athlete in the video.

Finn Melanson [00:15:08]: What are your favorite books in the mental readiness, genre?

Guest [00:15:13]: Yeah. Actually, there's so many. I think in the book on this, like, 2 months ago, which are right now available. I think I really and search for. We find a whole bunch of works. And instead of reading what people who are having and set it up and they gotten the body of this. And you start to get some ideas on what the that work is gonna work for the eye. That's not gonna help the athlete.

Guest [00:15:59]: And things have largely stayed the same, but a little bit feature and there on the way. When but things are down a while, software. We've got a now in software. How how would I, talk how should I talk to myself when I'm training? And then remind me to race, when I'm if I'm by myself, all the situation that we have. How do I talk to myself? Make sure that I don't wanna be bothered about my preparation in the race. I want to share an athlete who's a stranger here. In the world championships. And, I think that was she was just not convinced that she could do it.

Guest [00:16:49]: She didn't have, saw, the arrow up, you know, what she achieved in both of them. Well, we think she can achieve very, very much, a very weak out and maybe these sorts of things. I understand that I'm trying to find a Russian. I hear about the topics. It's about long value in the United States. And, I had heard him start side out. This is an online team, not not not the office. Need to work on.

Guest [00:17:22]: And a lot of times, we need to work on ways to to improve the perception. So, for example, one thing that he suggested I have to do every day at the end of the day, when she's really good, how do we probably take the 10 months before we fall asleep? During those 10 minutes, go back to your day and think about all things that you do, especially out in in this case, you can cycle. So things that you did on black and work out in the day. And how that work out on it. And find something within that workout that was good when she did the these source banks are given or not stored away in your memory, and they become good signs of of, having done our past. And when you come to a tough situation while you're starting on a very broad race, it's been. And there's no racing the mind says to you, you know, this is, you're not really ready for this. We probably need to be in better shape than some people look like in much security than we are.

Guest [00:18:38]: That's me people that have not thought of some of these big memories you have and those sort of memories you've been out of the family previous. And when you look at some of these things, you're were giant. We're. Yeah. I can be told when I worked out. I did a lot of back in 19 this is eighties in which I, was doing 800 meter repeats. And last year in Colorado, when it's warm, it was snowing really hard, and it's coming down as vertical, and then a horizontal snow. And I've been trying to manage, which is a very, very tough workout.

Guest [00:19:16]: And I can recall I got through that workout. Well, the worst things I ever did in my life as far as your workout was concerned. And you missed it. I still remember what that workout was like and how it felt and how I needed to pick myself through it and once it was over. And then once I get in a situation where I doubted my ability, I always go back into that workout. This is this is something we did before. This is not as difficult as that, probably less difficult. You did do it because you've done it before.

Guest [00:19:44]: So it's that sort of thing that the app needs to do over and over and over again to to build their space off

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Guest [00:22:34]: That's what I just explained. That that's the one where I am and and saving money. That's something you did that way. That that's a savings account you're bringing in to us. It's just a a flagrant. It's just a collection of all the things you have done, which you're which indicate that you're a strong athlete. You're a good athlete. You We can achieve things at a high level.

Guest [00:22:56]: And you got all sort of savings account. So you can call savings account anytime you want. So it's really just the same idea.

Finn Melanson [00:23:03]: Because it makes me wonder because I think in that section of the book, you talk about, sort of acting as if you're a confident athlete in that when you sort of assume that position or station in life, you do ultimately get to a point where you no longer have to pretend. You just are that type of athlete. And does that come from a position of science? Like, does the science say that there can be this possible evolution in confidence as an athlete if you just sort of, like, act the part?

Guest [00:23:33]: Well, I'm trying to say, maybe after some advice. But I was just, personally, that's not from breaking experience in working with athletes. For example, the after that, rather being 5th place in that world championship, That was one of the things I worked on. I heard with quite a bit, but a lot of things to work on. That was one of the things. She just had to be into, that as if. For example, she had been racist in some of the best athletes of all, and I would ask her, well, we might pull out one of the athletes that was one of the best in the world. This time, was the best scientist, female scientist in the Yeah.

Guest [00:24:13]: I asked her a couple of questions like the former race. If you see Jeanie Black walking around the former race, don't she? My athlete said, well, she knows why she thinks she's going on it. I said, well, when you're on the bike and you're and the race is starting, you're just over at the start line. And you see, gee, why don't she look like that? Well, she looks off. She thinks she's gonna win it. I said to her, well, what I'm like you do is when you walk around the race is act like you think you're gonna win. If you're autobiotic at start of the race, act like you think you're gonna win. This this is the idea of what you're talking about here is is that you've got an adventure saw, first of all.

Guest [00:24:51]: And sometimes the best way to adventure saw is just to act apart and just play the role and whatever it is you want to achieve, and that helps you to eventually absorb this idea that you know where we are. Can't achieve this very hot at all. So, again, I'm not seeing research on that, but I've seen it working this this app. And there there was a thing that didn't. There was a lot of things we did, and we're gonna shoot the offer.

Finn Melanson [00:25:18]: You know, transitioning over to physical readiness, you talk a lot in the book about specific practice and how it's important to know why you're doing each workout, where it is in sort of, like, the the periodization element of things, what's involved, etcetera. I'd love for you to talk more about this and specifically to talk more about how much an athlete should expect of their coach to you know, if they're using a Google Doc, for example, or TrainingPeaks to explain the elements of the workout. Saying for a lot of athletes out there, you know, I know in my case at various points in life, as I've been working with coaches, you see the workout. It's written. Maybe some details around, you know, how much rest is involved, estimates around pacing or or zones you should be operating in, but not much like like theory and framework about why it's being inserted into the block. So talk about this if you don't mind.

Guest [00:26:16]: Yeah. That's that's a good time. Very, very difficult to improve that in a workout, which is why I'm doing this in some detail. It can be very general. We're we're trying to build your, for example. That would be one way of explaining this. That by itself doesn't, like, tell the athlete a whole lot. Having a good coach, turn when you are, not just for individual workouts, which is important, but also with the way picture.

Guest [00:26:44]: Why why are we doing all this stuff? Why why are we going down the track on the side of training? Why do we do these things? That's that's a creative question that the athlete needs answering. When I was a young athlete, we were never told these things. I'm going back now to when I was in college, for example, I saw We were never told why. We were only told just didn't be saying because the cops said we shouldn't have been. But that is the only reason we thought should should have done is going to the. But that's changed over the years now. Kochi has become much more much more democratic. Yeah.

Guest [00:27:22]: It is is no longer just simply a, an employee something to be bossed around as they were back then. The athlete is not actually the boss. The the athlete is probably should be in charge of the situation. Coach is the employee, and the coach should be telling the athlete all the things the athlete needs to to achieve at Iowa. That begins with why. And and you start with a big picture. Why is it is it seasonal way out the way it is? Why are we doing the the this turning away I've got a schedule for you? Why are we working 1st on frequency before we work on duration before we work on the test? That's the reason for that. There's all kinds of stuff presented training, And a lot of times, yeah, I can say, I have no actually no idea about that is.

Guest [00:28:11]: And, of course, there are there are many applicants who really don't care what that is. They just wanna work at it so we can really do it. I always enjoy coaching app, and you had you had some kind of interest in in why we're doing all these things and where we can get into a conversation about our details. But I don't wanna see it happen, really. I know somebody gets involved so much in details that they spend hours going through all the data post workout to see how we how how well we get involved to and going to work out of the bus. That that should be the person's responsibility there. You can glance at the data, but really not they're not making call in and trying to, have a have a complete understanding of every detail that that is done on the in work at that today. So such a it's a it's a time starts with understanding the reason why for the entire season, all the way down to why are we doing this program.

Guest [00:29:07]: Why why are we doing integrals in this particular way? Why am I having you you gotta roll the index work out of certain integrals today? How come I change the schedule? Why are we doing it? That's where we have big. But you have to go to our mind also. The coaches all offer the services under a very there are a lot of different, headings. Some will say exactly what we're providing full service. We've got that anytime we want. The other end of the of the spectrum is that she says, you know, we got that in lots of miles. That applicant knows, that by paying for the. You're not gonna get much feedback on why.

Guest [00:29:49]: We're all gonna be told to work at some. Whereas if Dutch, you could get a relatively high fee for your coach, Coach takes us a lot more serious amount. So, consequently, the coach is gonna get a lot more details on what's going on. So you kinda get what you're paying for. When you find all kinds of coaching all kinds of coaching services out there, and they vary considerably. And the the avenue they're getting sold into when they make a decision.

Finn Melanson [00:30:17]: There was a quote in the book where you say if you aren't fully recovered in 48 hours, the workout was probably too hard. And it made me think about a larger question around how both the coach and the athlete are able to distinguish between the fatigue that you can expect just from cumulative training that's just kind of natural in a block and that you can kind of persist through with with mental readiness versus the dangerous kind that can take an athlete sort of off that fitness cliff and really undermine all the work they've been doing. In your experience as a coach, how what have what have been the best practices for knowing which is which there?

Guest [00:30:59]: Yeah. There's there's a lot going on. Yeah. It depends on that there is the athlete overtraining or under recovery. They're not the same thing. They're keeping a lot of the same situation. That may not be overtraining, but maybe they they should be doing in their training that are appropriate. You know, they've been not buying.

Guest [00:31:18]: And then, for example, we have Jesse all of a sudden from them. That may not be the problem. Probably just need a better lifestyle and substance. We don't, we don't recover. And they can't get back to, adding a status again where they can sell another arm and work out within 2 days. So and and I know we can do that things like which, you know, we already touched on, which is things they have in the lives. That's part of it. But it's also, like, their stress they had, their mental stress.

Guest [00:31:48]: The distress that goes on between their ears. But if you have a job, which is very stressful, That's the same thing as having a hard work at. Your body has really Yeah. In terms of, grasp all what's going on to it. There's differences between something that has long physical exertion or psychological exertion. Your body is worn out either way. You may not have muscle soreness and from natural exertion, psychological problems, but should not be worn out entirely from it. So it's really much bigger picture than just one gaslight.

Guest [00:32:26]: That that's a part of it. And that's, again, bringing back a very early sentence, very early thought again. That was how much sleep you get because this is one of the issues. It's how much how much you have in your life that's causing stress for you. They could get a lot of stuff. It could be that this is our stressful job, a lot of responsibility, a lot of problems at work, and bring us home with you, and you have a hard time to sit or do you have a an argument in your stocks? And that, sets you up in the same situation. You're not so big all of that. And this this list could go on and on and on.

Guest [00:33:01]: So it's all kind of things that go into this idea. I don't know if we're trying, but it may not be overtraining. Right? It will simply be developing their living. There's just too much stuff going on in their life. That's, again, why I suggest that the app can only have 3 things in their life that they have very high goal. So it it's a really complex topic. A very and both coach is gonna do both. I don't think that balance.

Guest [00:33:33]: Right? As I mentioned, she's telling 3 things. Once you got bounced, right, then it becomes focused on primarily on churning. So if they have to it's running it down, it's more than likely because we some of China or. We just did not get enough rest acting to work out. If there's no time for work at its 2 times. It should be able to fast back and then 48 hours quite easier to work out. Efforts to push themselves off the general. We all do that.

Guest [00:34:04]: I've done it. Every athlete's done that. And there may be times less good. If you're doing a race, for example, and you're in the in the race, should you decide to go harder or hold back because you don't wanna retire tomorrow or 2 days later? Then unlikely, you might not see the city. You should have retired 48 hours later, and that's okay. That's not always the case. The effort needs to make sure they're doing things that allow for recovery and then get themselves to talk to things they need to encourage recovery.

Finn Melanson [00:34:37]: I feel like in most areas of yeah. In most areas of life, people have natural strengths. They have natural weaknesses, and there's always a debate about, you know, do I work on those weaknesses so I can kind of bring them up to par with my strengths, or do I have more leverage if I double and triple down on my strengths and just make those an even bigger advantage for me? And in the book, you talk about sort of how to determine these, quote unquote, ability limiters or your goal specific weaknesses and and to work on those. And I guess my question is, what is the argument for for why it may be more productive to work on those as opposed to reinvesting in your your strengths for a particular event?

Guest [00:35:25]: Yeah. To do is to take care of the limited result. You mentioned that. The limiters advance coming back for the race. It's not a it's not something which is applicable to you outside of the conditions of the race itself. It it's only a difference in the race. For example, if you're doing a race which is very ill, and you're just not very good at running out of hills, that's a limiter. It really doesn't matter if it goes back.

Guest [00:35:55]: You have a weakness on Hilton Watts. It's not a limited in that case. That's why I use the word limited or rather weakness. The weakness is something that we all have. All of our weaknesses involved at London also. There's a limited risk to setting generational training fund. You're trying for a marathon, and you're not very good at law and ignorance. Why don't you spend all your time working on the track? I haven't gone fast.

Guest [00:36:16]: That would not make sense. You wanna work on what is you'd want there. So you're back in your endurance. You don't have any endurance. You don't go where the the mobile is 3 hours or 3 and a half hour over maybe. If that's your goal and we can't do that, we should not have not not even do that in the past. And that's a one that we need to model. So it's a sort of thing that only has to do with, what's holding you back.

Guest [00:36:40]: We need to fix that while we maintain your strengths. So if you're good at, high intensity, let's maintain that while we work on your endurance to work together for this marathon. It may not just be endurance. It may be sadder. It's just something a little bit different than endurance. So let me figure out exactly what it is that's holding this back, and then make sure we're getting that thing fixed. And people, I don't have to use it for the test because, like, kinda see it from a from a, mechanic. I'm gonna do that.

Guest [00:37:12]: We're working on something here, like a clock or a car. You know, working the way we wanted them to run. And, it's our body, but we've gotta figure out what 1st shot is wrong with this body and why we're not able to achieve whatever product money we'll achieve our goal and then go about fixing that. And so we we can achieve our goal. So I truly just have that to to, learn learn your weaknesses compared to your strengths. Once you know your weaknesses compared to those of the ratio, knowing the same measure or.

Finn Melanson [00:37:43]: I wanna make sure there's a couple other questions I wanna make sure there's a couple other questions

Guest [00:37:48]: that I wanna make sure we get to. I'm I'm just really

Finn Melanson [00:37:48]: curious to get your perspective on. The first one has to do with all of the increasing training technology that's at our disposal as athletes these days. You know? A lot of watches. Like, I'm I'm wearing a chorus right now. A lot of people wear a Garmin. They have all sorts of new, like, you know, intensity measuring technology. There's also all sorts of new biometric data available. Of course, you can, you know, go into a lab and and get a lactate test or a sweat test.

Finn Melanson [00:38:16]: In the moment, like, we're we're recording in February 2024, where do you draw the line on reliability and and what's worth looking at from a data accuracy standpoint from all of these options available to athletes and coaches?

Guest [00:38:31]: Yeah. I mean, first of all, what is an important thing to kind of measure? Strikes it back on previous question. What is my limiter? I know my limiter. How do I measure success or improvement in that limiter? And that's the thing we need to launch. At the same time, we're about to start with global strengths in order to be maintained. So what are indicators of my strength? For example, I think one of the best things Natalie can do throughout their throughout their, career, throughout their season to be impartial study is work on their rolling endurance. What I've got that caters about rolling endurance is is doing something that I know on efficiency factor, which is the case of runner is their their average speed. For 1, for example, provided by their average.

Guest [00:39:18]: And I think it's an idea of, of of how many how fast they're running, well, which is given input. How how faster they're, upgrades to output, which is speed, relevant to outrageous their input, which is their. What we do happen to see happen over time is to improve. So if the athlete needs to improve their endurance, their their aerobic endurance, that's one of the things I would check every time they do aerobic endurance workout is what is that amount. And while I compare that with previous workouts, which are very similar, similar meaning similar duration, similar course, similar intensity. And, by comparing what I have to say, we still look for summer workout and see what was that EF number that made weeks ago, That becomes 1 more indicator of how you're doing, and you don't have to go through everything else, all the other stuff because we as you're suggesting, we're we're overwhelmed right now with data. The idea is boil it down to what's important. What are the most important things for the athletes to really be able to to measure progress.

Guest [00:40:22]: Well, they don't want to spend a lot of time just to calculate the time we're looking at, trying to run through all calculations on the numbers, what we should be doing, because they they they become a little while with with data. I would really be adding one thing they look at, and that's the one, in this case, that I would have in 1 minute is how are they doing in terms of their efficiency factor? There are other things we need to be working on with. That's that's a good example, I think, but all of that things I'll be working on especially early in the season because they're going to.

Finn Melanson [00:40:55]: Why are listen. I guess this is a 2 part question. But why are training diaries so important, and what should athletes, if they're using them, be recording in those diaries?

Guest [00:41:08]: Yeah. Diaries kinda like, a record of what I've done. And I can get all sorts of things. I know they have a name on it and notebook. I see a lot of people doing notebooks, but that's quite alright. It's just not quite as easy to search. You know, we've got something whereas it's online. You can search for it easily and find what you're looking for and and find out new details of that.

Guest [00:41:32]: So, so, Penny, the the is a good place to know what you're what what you're gonna do and are and and answer the question, am I making improvements? Am I getting better? And what are my goal maybe? Am I making progress toward that goal over time? Is that happening to me? And even along the same line is we know that's gonna take years from Apple to reach their. This is not what happened the 1st year, the 2nd year, the 3rd year. We're talking about what's about 8 to 10 years before an apple reaches a pinnacle on the store and really is good at what they're doing, assuming they start to really have working on this. Having a diary logic go back to learn to see how you're doing on this course of 8, 9, 10 years. And, therefore, you can see through yourself changes that are taking place. It becomes very, very effective. You're able to see that you're making progress, You kinda pat yourself in the back, say, yeah. We're we're doing really well here and keep this going.

Guest [00:42:37]: But it's also the sort of thing you need to watch out for because they're going to be ups and downs all the time in that, at least, aggression in in their score. You're gonna have bad news and good news. You're gonna have good workouts and bad workouts, big races and bad races. We say, you know, we want that understanding, and the diary should reflect that. She'd said this was not a good workout, for example. This is not over up on me. Whatever it may be, diaries to go back in the south, back to, gosh, 19 early 19 seventies, as a runner. And, it's it's remarkable that looking back at these things, what, 50 some years ago and see what I was experiencing then and how I was training.

Guest [00:43:28]: Yeah. I can see big changes taking voice over the more than many years. And it's also getting right now. Change and not. And all that case, all that you know, all that progressing and sometimes going in the wrong direction. Anytime in the wrong direction. That's to be expected. I've only been person, oh, gosh, 50 years.

Guest [00:43:46]: So, anyway, that that's the sort of thing we can look back on, and you have something that the gap will will, treasure for the rest of your life. This is something that that stands out whether it is or who they were as a younger person or as a younger athlete, which you may not have in any other aspect of our lives. So training data is, I think, valuable in many other ways. Most importantly, I had you made sure we're we're going the right direction as far as what we're doing and training by comparing ourselves now with how we run some work.

Finn Melanson [00:44:21]: Last question for you. In the epilogue, you say, quote, pay attention to the little things. Why is this?

Guest [00:44:28]: Yeah. It's possible. It's a lot of that. It's why we need to be paying attention to, for example, for for runners, I mean, sensation in your knee after work out. You're in even worse during the workout. You feel something that doesn't feel quiet. Right? Yeah. Answer that.

Guest [00:44:48]: Don't just shut it off and say, well, we they'll be they'll go away. You know, what is this going on? What what is happening to you? What did you need today that that is different than what you've done before? There's something happening that's that will produce a bigger problem for me down the line. So, you know, just paying attention to to the little things that are happening is my body weight changing over time. You don't need to be down over overly, focused on what my body weight is, but look at it every couple of days at least and see what's happening in your body and see what's going on there. It happened very good. Just paying attention to little things. Kind of give you an idea how bigger picture. Take all these things together, all the stuff that's going on in your life, all in together.

Guest [00:45:35]: I think we need to have much better idea the time we're we're doing right now on simply trying to remember things. So pay attention to it and refer to the diary and have a record of what you're what you're experiencing.

Finn Melanson [00:45:49]: Jofreel, this has been an awesome conversation. We really appreciate your time. Again, the book is called The Triathlete's Training Bible, the most comprehensive training guide out there. We will link to it in the show notes. Is there anything, any parting thoughts or additional calls to action that you wanna leave listeners with before we go?

Guest [00:46:08]: I'm just so I was, again, one more thing is that if you have a high roll, we need a pair of bags and you have in your light so she can have sleep. That's critical needs to surface. I think that's the sleep is when fitness happens. Fitness doesn't happen when you do a workout. It happens in sleep after the workout. That's all the, neurons in relation to your bloodstream, and they go about rebuilding muscles and nerves nervous systems. They all stop places who we are as athletes, and that all. So whatever you do, make sure you get mostly.

Guest [00:46:42]: This is our starting point for, hypothermic Journey is making sure you

Finn Melanson [00:47:04]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Melanson. As always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch Finn and the rest of our team at runners connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests, and premier access to contests and giveaways, you can subscribe to our newsletter by going to runnersconnect.net backslash podcast. Until next time, happy trading.